Stuart Herbert wrote:
By your own admission, you're on the announce list, and but you didn't
know about the Apache changes. Imagine how many other users were in the
same situation. Imagine how many other users never signed up to the
announce list in the first place.
On gentoo-dev, gentoo-user, gentoo-devel, gentoo-server and
gentoo-web-user on 2005-09-08 01:48 UTC a message titled "Stabilization
of new-style Apache" was posted.
Quoting John Myers:
For the record, it was sent to the announce list on 2004-12-24.
Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [gentoo-announce] Apache packages refresh on 8th January 2005
giving me the impression that the new-style apache changes were not
announced (though they did cause some trouble), and that this message --
which unfortunately is not on Gmane, so I cannot check -- probably deals
*not* with those new-style apache changes. If it does, then it might be
'badly timed'.
In the whole of 2005 I can see one message on gentoo-announce which is
not a GLSA, which is a release announcement for Gentoo Linux 2005.0.
Considering the description of gentoo-announce "General Gentoo
announcements list (new releases, security fixes)" perhaps this list
might not the the right place for such **important** announcements as
the new-style apache message.
However, suppose I was a normal user, and I would like to receive these
messages, where should I sign up for?
gentoo-user?
"General Gentoo user support and discussion mailing list" sounds like
a lot of spam to me, and if I don't have questions myself, or prefer
using the (excellent) forums for that, then why should I sign up for
that?
gentoo-dev perhaps?
"General Gentoo developer discussion mailing list" sounds like a lot
of spam too, and certainly not as source for important messages from
a user perspective.
gentoo-security?
"For the discussion of security issues and fixes" Well, as user I
might only be interested in the announcement of security fixes,
don't need discussions on them, and since I want those important
messages about changes in gentoo psckages... nope, this is not it.
gentoo-gwn?
"Gentoo Weekly Newsletter" well, might come in handy, doesn't say
anything about what it does exactly and might contain a lot of
noise considering what I'm looking for.
doc, doc-cvs, translator, ppc-user, ppc-dev, <arch>, kernel, laptop:
not applicable
gentoo-desktop:
might be, though not interested in window managers
<etc etc etc>
gentoo-server?
"Discussions about Gentoo in production environments" ok, I don't need
discussions, I just want messages on **important** changes.
After going through the list, I got the impression there is simply no
place where such messages clearly would go. gentoo-announce sounds as
the best option to go for, but its description somehow suggests not.
Though, subscribed to gentoo-announce means you get nothing but GLSA
announcements and sometimes a new release announcements.
So, what list should the user that wants to receive those **important**
messages sign up to?
I still think that *this* is the reason why people don't seem to know
about the important changes, because there is no obvious place where to
get them. It's quite likely that a user that wanted to see the
new-style apache message didn't see it because it simply didn't appear
on a list the user hoped to see it. It was in the GWN of 2005-09-12,
but I can imagine a user didn't expect it to be there, as there is no
description at al for GWN list, and the **important** information will
always have to be extracted from the GWN, since each GWN covers multiple
items in a few categories which not every user might interest.
Send **important** messages separate to a non-discussion mailing list,
and I'm sure that many people will be happy to read it -- just like
gentoo-announce.
--
Fabian Groffen
Gentoo for Mac OS X Project -- Interim Lead
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